ANGELES CITY– Malacañang was urged yesterday to release at least 50 percent of its P 21.7-billion calamity funds to help some one million folk affected by the southwest monsoon, mostly in Luzon.
This was the appeal of the fishers’ group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) and the Anakpawis party list which, in a joint statement, said Pres. Aquino is “morally obliged” to do so for the benefit especially of “ thousands of farmers, fisherfolk and urban poor affected by Gener.”
Anakpawis party list vice chairperson Fernando Hicap and Pamalakaya vice chairperson Salvador France said “the President should ready the calamity funds upon request of people’s associations and local government units.”
“The people fully deserve the appropriate assistance. The P 21.7-billion calamity fund for 2012 belongs to them,” they said in their joint statement.
The statement noted that P 7.5 billion had been allotted by Congress for calamity funds while P 14.2 billion were set aside for unprogrammed disaster risk and management activities for this year.
“Malacañang should immediately release at least 50 percent of the P 21.7-B funds for victims and affected sectors,” they added.
According the to latest bulletin issued by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), affected persons in Ilocos, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Mimaropa and National Capital Region number 267,850 families or 1,230,813 persons.
The NDRRMC also said displaced persons outside and inside evacuation centers were estimated at 163,007 families or 783,707 persons.
The same bulletin said there were a total of 90 municipalities in Ilocos, Central Luzon, Calabarzon and NCR inundated by floods.
This, even as Pamalakaya expressed support for the demand of other sectors for the Aquino government to impose price control on basic commodities, including an indefinite halt on the increases in the prices of petroleum products, water and power utilities to enable workers and ordinary people to cope up with the current economic displacement brought about by the two-week non-stop rains and heavy flooding all over Metro Manila and other areas affected by typhoon Gener and long-running Habagat.
